Blog stats

Well I started this blog in March 2007.
In the last 6 months I have had these stats:

15,254 Hits
28,342 Page Views
125 Counties/ Territories (3,596 cities)

Top City: London (591 hits)

Top Key word from search engines: SCCM tools

top Post: add-computer-to-collection

Top ISP: Road Runner

Top company: Microsoft (This is probably due to the MS Forums)

This is by no means the best blog or the one with the most hits. I though it would be interesting to look at what is going on with it. It gives you a good feeling when someone looks at your work

SCCM support for SQL 2008

SQL Server 2008 is now supported on Configuration Manager 2007 RTM and SP1
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (RTM and SP1) now supports the use of SQL Server 2008 as a site database. In order to upgrade a site-server database to SQL 2008 there are 2 hot fixes required:
· ConfigMgr 2007 RTM customers must apply hot fix KB955229
· ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 customers must apply hot fix KB955262

The following are requirements when performing a clean install on a SQL Server 2008 database:
· A clean install of ConfigMgr 2007 RTM on a SQL Server 2008 database is not supported. You must first install SQL Server 2005, upgrade to SQL Server 2008 and then apply hot fix KB955229
A clean install of ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 on a SQL Server 2008 database is supported, but should apply hot fix KB955262

Orignal link: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrannouncements/thread/729a17a4-eafa-4c98-b5d5-280aaa063f3a/

Glitch in Software Distribution SP1

I don't think I saw this in RTM but it might be there.
Here are the steps to reproduce the problem.


1. Right click on your collection and select properties
2. Under membership rules create a new query for the collection
3. Type in the Name and set Resource Class to System Resource
4. Under Collection Limiting select Limit to Collection and browse to a collection to limit
5. Select Import Query Statement select any query to import and click ok
6. Now look at the Collection Limiting, is now set back to No collection limited

update to www.SCCM-tools.com

Well I have made some changes to my site http://www.sccm-tools.com It should be more firefox friendly. I needed to make some changes to the CSS and the Ajax. Take a look and play with the site.

SCCM Backup of a seperate SQL database

When you edit your Backup tasks one item it asks about is where you want to store your Backups for both the site server and the SQL databse. You have 2 options:
1. UNC path
2. Local HD

When you choose option 2 you need to be aware of the context of the backup. The site server will backup to the site server hard disk to your desired folder say c:\xxxx-site. If you set the database to be backup to c:\xxxx-database be aware of it is asking. Checking of you log will show that the backup was completed with no errors yet the folder isn't there. ahh check the SQL server under c:\xxxx-database The SQL database will be saved to its local HD. In this context you need to keep this in mind if you do C:\ of your servers or if prefer go ahead and save both to a UNC path for backup in a single folder

More Excluding Collections

Say you want to create a collection that will be all computer except certian OUs and maybe some other computers:

select SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceID,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceType,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Name,SMS_R_SYSTEM.SMSUniqueIdentifier,SMS_R_SYSTEM.ResourceDomainORWorkgroup,SMS_R_SYSTEM.Client from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name not in (select distinct SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name from SMS_R_System inner join SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM on SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.ResourceID = SMS_R_System.ResourceId where SMS_R_System.SystemOUName = "domain/OU/OU" or SMS_R_System.SystemOUName = "domain/OU/OU2" or SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name = "computer2")

now this assumes 1 computer. You could add multiple " or SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name = "computer2") " but this is not really a well formed statement. Other ways to do this is use the "or SMS_G_System_COMPUTER_SYSTEM.Name in ("computer2","computer3") " and so forth.

Don't forget you can also do something like this if you want to exclude an entire collection :

and ResourceId not in (select ResourceID from SMS_CM_RES_COLL_XXXxxxxx)

More cross link of exclusions
http://sms-hints-tricks.blogspot.com/2008/10/exclusions-based-on-group-or-ou.html

Help with sccm-tools

Well as some of you have seen I have http://www.sccm-tools.com up but not really running. I need items tested. Take a look at the site and you can use the contact address at the bottom to submit problems and improvements. My hope is to have the site "operational" by Oct 1.